TEACHER DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this blog is to be a fun way for friends and family of the Monhegan School to stay up-to-date with all of our events and activities. I am often writing this blog in between teaching subjects, making copies, or planning for multiple grades. I sometimes may forget to cross my t's or dot my i's but I would hope people understand this is in no way a formal document and/or a representation of the teaching that happens at school. Thanks and enjoy!

Monday, April 9, 2012

Quinn's Water Filtering!

Dalton and Quinn have been doing some inquiry work in science class involving what they learned in geology this past trimester. They started by asking a TON of great questions about what they are wondering about the Earth's geology. A lot of the questions ended up having to do with the Earth's hydrosphere and how we gain access to our drinking water. The boys had to pick one of the questions that they brainstormed to research further and create a inquiry project on.

The question Quinn decided to research was, "How can we reverse water contamination? How can we filter our water?" This question came about after we watched the documentary "Flow" that presents information about the World Water Crisis. Quinn wanted to figure out what different ways there are out there that people can try and filter their own water.

He did some prelimanary research about water contamenation and filtration. Did you know that close to one billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water!?

Quinn research different ways one could filtrate their own water. He then picked four different filtration ideas that he was going to test on his own.

One way was to build a home-made solar oven that he could use to heat the water and try to eliminate some of the contaminated organisims from the water.

Another test he wanted to conduct was using a Brita filter that is very common in most households to filter water.

Apparently he needed safety glasses for all of these water experiments!

Quinn also created a homemade filtration unit that is modeled after natural aquifers.

The filter is made out of a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom cut off and a straw put into the cap to drain the water.

Then you have to add layers of cotton, charcol, sand, and gravel to the bottom to mimic the layers of natural aquifers.

We had to go to the beach to get some sand for this project. But when we saw the Truman officer coming we decided to run and hide so he wouldn't think we were skipping school!!

Pretty nice that we have our own beach to get sand from!

Collecting the sand!

Adding the layers to the filter.

Almost done!

Time to filter!

We used this water testing kit to test the PPM of the water before and after we filtered our water. It was pretty interesting because we are not suppose to drink the water at our school, so we knew it was going to have a higher "PPM" then most since it was not safe to drink.

And you know what! Our filters worked! We still have to use some chemical tablets to try and filter the water... but it has been pretty cool to test some of these experiments and collect the results!

We will keep you posted! Quinn plans to share his results at Open House in May!